Numb Becoming
by Tracy Space Cowgirl
Summary: River is becoming something else. Set after the big damn movie.


Title:Numb; Becoming  
Author:Tracy  
Summary: Now River is becoming something else.  
Rating:PG  
Characters: River centric, mentions of rest of crew  
Pairing: gen  
Spoilers: Big Damn Movie.

Disclaimer: I don't own the shiny. I just love it to itty bitty little bits.

* * *

Simon has always been an open book. His mind is easy and managed, and I know it like the back of my hand. Since I was a tiny child, I would spend time in his mind, because it was a lot more comfortable than my own. Simon is smart, but not _gifted_- like me. His whole world is his mind, rather than the whole world being his mind. That makes him a happier, if not better person, than me.

I cried when he went off to school during the days, because then I couldn't climb in his mind and run away from all the noise in my own.

I think that was the first time I realized that my brother and I were not two parts of a whole. As time goes by, that truth only becomes more prevalent and painful.

My parents were never like Simon. Their minds were wound tight. I could never find a way in; find a way to fit in. I was not part of their unit, but a lonely dividend.

I know everything, and I know nothing. I was in their minds, knowing what they were going to do to me as they stuck probes into my brain. Forced. Trapped. Like a lemming on the edge of a cliff, I could do nothing to escape. Caught in a trap, caged like animal, with a universe going supernova in my brain.

Simon was my only hope. I knew how to reach him, I'll always know how to reach him, for I am the minotaur in his labyrinth. I worded my pleas for help in a way that I knew he'd notice. I never doubted that my brother would save me. We're parts of a whole, my brother and I.

Miranda was a secret in my head, one I tried so hard to hide. The deeper I buried it, the more it hurt, a stabbing pain in my side when I breathed. It would have been simpler, to die and bury the secret deep under the sand with my body. Bullet in the brainpain, squish, end it all.

And then there was Serenity. New minds to explore, new personas to hide behind. I could be brave like Mal, faithful like Zoe, funny like Wash, ruthless like Jayne, loving like Inara, cheerful like Kaylee, and brilliant like Shepard Book. Never be myself. Bury myself with Miranda, leave behind words that don't connect, phrases that don't compute.

Knowing and understanding are two different things. I've never understood myself.

It was much easier to hide, to be numb.

All I wanted to do was give up, lay down, and have it all be done. But I couldn't.

At the Academy, they screwed with my brain. Made it a ruttin' mess. Made me into a creature of their own design. But I never shed my own skin. And inside, somehow, there were other Rivers, the River I might have been without the Academy, the River, I might be one day. She wouldn't give up the sky.

I couldn't be what they wanted me to be.

Reading a mind of a Reaver is like being thrust into hell. It still haunts me. Reavers and Alliance at once, thousands of thoughts, of impulses, of feelings, at once.

A great big gaping hole where Wash should be. Indescribable pain and rage from Zoe, a sadness and a sense of failure from Mal. Sharp and bitter, I couldn't help but feel it. Knives to the soul. Another knife as the rest of the crew came to realize what happened on the bridge.

Simon's mind was too chaotic to hide in. Fear of the reavers. Sadness at loosing Wash. Desire for Kaylee, regret that he hadn't told her. Worries that he wouldn't survive, worries that he'd be the only one to survive.

When he got shot, our link was broken. I couldn't hide inside Simon's mind. I couldn't reach my serenity.

Simon had always taken care of me.

Suddenly, he couldn't.

I needed to take care of him. And I could.

If it took a Reaver to defeat a Reaver, I would become a Reaver.

I would fight for my family. For my brother, for the women and men who had become my world.

Sharing Miranda was the first step.

And then I stood on my own.

River the Reaver. As I jumped into the fray, it became a dance. I knew the movements to make, the exact timing, to survive.

Now the world is different. Mal occupies the pilot's seat, but he does not play with dinasours. Zoe cries every night, but never where anyone else can hear. Simon embraces Kaylee, becoming part of a person that I cannot be.

If I am an albatross, I am a Reaver, and an assassin. I am a young girl who came of age. I am violence, I am humor, I am patience.

I make no sense, but I am no longer numb.

For the first time I feel, and I feel for myself, without my gift, but with normal senses. The black is vast, and I am becoming, vast and wonderful, and new.


End file.
